If you have mastered an FP.. then you should try a CP heli. Flying is the same.. what is different you may ask?

a) starts out like your flying FP..

b) at mid stick you click idle up: where the motor runs at full throttle and the pitch of the blades is what you control to go up and down. So at center stick the heli hovers, negative stick the heli is being pushed down.. positive stick and heli goes up.

This allows you to do inverted flight.. so when you roll the heli you put in negative pitch/stick and the heli goes up..

b) the set up, it takes a while to wrap your brain around it and then learn how to tweak it from there.

This allows you to do inverted flight.. so when you roll the heli you put in negative pitch/stick and the heli goes up.

There is another thing to idle up that most dont touch on and it wasnt till i had a 450 for a while and flying my king that some one mentioned why it was good to use.

Most people when they mention idle up they always use the inverted or 3D thing and for me i wasnt interested in doing any 3D or inverted so i shyed away from idle up, i didnt feel i was at that level of flying yet. For me it was just an extra switch that i could bump and strip gears, break blades and wreck my heli. I did that many times

Then some one mentioned that when you flip the heli into idle up mode your running the motor up into its power band so that when you increase the pitch by moving the stick up and down you dont get that motor bog/tail jerk thing that you get with FPs. In idle up mode the tail holds better and is more stable. It actualy flys better

It takes some getting use to though. When your use to flying FPs and when you get into a jam you dump the throttle you have to relearn not to do this and to fly out of bad situations.

Lately, Iíve been thinking about the need for a 450 size FP heli. What I envision is producing sets of FP head parts for 450 size helis. For example, Iím a newbie and I want to start out on a larger FP heli, so I buy a T-Rex 450. I remove the CP head parts from the T-Rex 450 and replace with the FP head parts. When Iím ready to move up to a CP heli, I simply remove the FP head parts and install the original CP head parts.

My wife is a senior manager for a company that sells plastic injection molding equipment. She has many contacts with plastic parts manufacturers who could produce these parts. I also have a friend who owns a business which manufacturers plastic parts for the automotive industry.

I have the contacts and resources to get this done, Iím just wondering about the demand. What do you guys think?

I am fairly sure most people use radios that allow you to mix the throttle and pitch curves to simulate a FP head for a CP heli...unless you are trying to simplify the head therfore keep crash costs down...

Then some one mentioned that when you flip the heli into idle up mode your running the motor up into its power band

That's not necessarily true. The affect you are talking about is due to running different pitch and throttle curves in Idle Up (for lower pitch and higher throttle, the same lift at higher head speed) Idle up doesn't always change the curves, and with a decent transmitter you can set the curves any way you want in any flight mode.

What Idle up does is keep the motor running when the throttle is below half stick, so you have to use throttle hold to stop it.

Higher head speed makes a heli more stable and more responsive, and generally better to fly - it also makes it a lot more expensive to crash - and THAT'S why FPs are good for beginners, not because they are easier to fly but because they don't break as often.

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Lately, Iíve been thinking about the need for a 450 size FP heli. What I envision is producing sets of FP head parts for 450 size helis.

That would be really useful. I would suggest you design something to fit the Blade400, because it's much cheaper than the TRex and a lot of newbies are going to buy one and crash it. If you could offer them a crash kit for the same or less than the official one, that will reduce the cost of their other crashes you'll be very popular.

There was a thread about it recently, the people who were enthusiastic were mostly experienced pilots who have seen too many 'I've just broken my new RTF CP heli' posts...

My wife is a senior manager for a company that sells plastic injection molding equipment. She has many contacts with plastic parts manufacturers who could produce these parts. I also have a friend who owns a business which manufacturers plastic parts for the automotive industry.

I have the contacts and resources to get this done, Iím just wondering about the demand. What do you guys think?

Sounds good. Check what Robin sez about the Blade 400. ALSO! Be carefull and test the parts well. They are small, and the bigger size and weight will put additional strains on these parts. It's just not plain black plastic. You might want to find out the formula the heli manufacturers use and copy it. You will need to make blades too.

That's not necessarily true. The affect you are talking about is due to running different pitch and throttle curves in Idle Up (for lower pitch and higher throttle, the same lift at higher head speed) Idle up doesn't always change the curves, and with a decent transmitter you can set the curves any way you want in any flight mode.

What Idle up does is keep the motor running when the throttle is below half stick, so you have to use throttle hold to stop it.

Most arnt at the stage they have their own transmitter though. Every RTF heli ive flow does this with out idle up.

A full cnc head for existing FPs would be great.. market already exists.. you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Currently there is no USA producer of a belt tail mod for the existing motor tail helis. Be nice to order these and parts in the USA. I would think you would get more orders for this.. than a 450 FP head.